


we are the lucky ones

by Prevalent_Masters



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Beheading, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, F/F, Face-Sitting, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Love Confessions, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Jay, One Night Stands, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Reunions, Ritual Sex, Strap-Ons, Vaginal Fingering, angsty sex, implied Andy/Quynh/Nile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:54:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29910357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevalent_Masters/pseuds/Prevalent_Masters
Summary: A fill a day for the TOG femslash fortnight event!Day 1:Five years after seeing them for what she thought was the last time, Nile runs into Jay at a coffeeshop and must decide whether to trust them or leave them behind. (Nile/Jay, T)Day 2:Andy always repays her debts. (Andy/Celeste, E)Day 3:The rule is simple. Send a tribute every spring, and the snows stop. Withhold the tribute, and Winter keeps her grip on the land. (Andy/Nile with some vague Andy/Nile/Quỳnh, M)Day 4:It’s months before they lay together the way they used to. (Andy/Quỳnh, E)Day 5:There is a part of her that feels Andromache is unknowable, and to try is to fail. (Andy/Quỳnh, T)Day 6:Andy's never had to think about hypothermia before. (Andy/Nile, T)Day 7:Nile, Jay, and a strap-on. (Nile/Jay, E)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Celeste, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Nile Freeman/Jay
Comments: 20
Kudos: 56
Collections: The Old Guard Femslash Fortnight





	1. Reunion, Nile/Jay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunions or Confessions. Five years after seeing them for what she thought was the last time, Nile runs into Jay at a coffeeshop and must decide whether to trust them or leave them behind. (Nile/Jay, T)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going to try out [Femslash Fortnight](https://tog-femslashfortnight.tumblr.com/) and see if I can manage a fill a day! We'll see how it goes. 
> 
> Title from Mary Oliver's "I Know Someone".

It was only a matter of time before it happened. As Andy said, it’s hard to hide these days. Still, she wasn’t expecting it to happen like this—a sharp gasp, the sound of glass shattering behind her, “ _Freeman_?” in a strangled whisper. A whisper she recognizes because those lips had been pressed to her ear or her own lips countless times, saying all sorts of things, whispering promises and _I love you_ s. 

She spins around, stumbling into one of the rickety wooden tables of the coffeeshop and—Jay. Looking just about the same as they did five years ago, hair a little longer than military regulation, big eyes wide, mouth open in shock, the remains of a white cup at their feet, a cappuccino slowly spreading its way across the tile floor. The woman behind the counter curses and throws a towel over the mess, but Jay’s eyes don’t leave her own. 

“This...that’s impossible,” they say after a long moment during which Nile should really be saying something, but can’t.

“Are you on leave?” she manages eventually, and Jay gapes at her.

“You’re asking _me_ questions?” they say loudly, which is when she makes the split second decision between fight and flight, grabs their wrist, and tows them out the door into the blustery spring day. She has three options. She could get Jay to an alley and knock them out, run, tell the others, and get the hell out of dodge ASAP. She really doesn’t want to do that, not least because the thought of hurting Jay makes her stomach churn. She could lie to them, spin some tale that they probably wouldn’t believe, get back to the others, and get the hell out of dodge ASAP. Or she could tell the truth.

Nile doesn’t want to keep telling lies. 

And Jay...she remembers the confusion, the disbelief in their eyes, but it was tempered by something that was absent from Dizzy’s mistrust. Relief. Like it hadn’t mattered to them what had brought Nile back from drowning in her own blood, as long as it meant she was back. Dizzy’s flat stare when she came back to the barracks to find all her stuff packed, and next to her Jay, with grief in their eyes. Like they knew, somehow, that something had happened. Like they knew they’d never see her again.

Behind her, Jay digs in their heels and brings them stumbling to a stop under the awning of a bodega. “ _Nile_. What—?” They trail off, looking her up and down. She knows she looks different, despite the fact she carries no new scars or wrinkles. Knows there’s something different in her eyes, something old. She sees it herself when she looks in the mirror.

“What are you doing in New York?” she asks, and Jay rolls their eyes, tugs their wrist from her grip, crosses their arms and leans against the window behind them. “Oh okay, Freeman. That’s how it’s gonna be?”

She scrubs a hand over her eyes. “Look, it’s a long story.”

“I’m sure it is. It's Friday, I got time.”

She thinks, wondering if the apartment is empty. Joe and Nicky are probably still out, but Andy and Quỳnh will be there because Andy is still recovering from a broken ankle and Quỳnh won’t let her stay on her feet for longer than a minute at a time, to Andy's great annoyance. So that’s out, and it’s getting cold, evening falling.

Jay taps their foot. “I’m waiting.”

“Let me buy you dinner,” she says desperately. “I know a place.”

Jay cocks their head. “You wanna take me on a date?”

She manages a smile she’s sure looks strained. “Well, we never did get that nice date we always talked about, did we?” It’s true. They’d fallen together like something crashing and inevitable, but it had all happened after deployment. No nice dinners or movie dates, just touching shoulders in the mess hall and desperate kisses after dark.

Jay shakes their head. “Fine, Freeman. Take me out.”

She leads them a few blocks to an Italian place that has Nicky’s approval, small and quiet, where a conversation can take place at a corner table without anyone overhearing. It's still early for dinner, so they nearly have the place to themselves, and Nile orders them a bottle of wine right away because she figures they’ll need it.

Jay raises a brow as Nile pours them a glass. “Well?”

“Well.” She clears her throat. “Um. After I...after I woke up, I had to leave.”

Jay nods. “Right. They were going to take you back to base, run some tests, make sure you were okay. But then...Nile, they said you’d died.”

She swallows at the mention of tests. She’s sure it would have gone far further than making sure she was okay. She’s sure she’d be locked up somewhere, in a worse situation than Merrick’s, if Andy hadn’t come and found her. “Yeah,” she says. “But I didn’t go with them.”

Jay gapes at her. “They said you did.”

She shakes her head. “Someone...someone else came and picked me up.”

“Someone else.”

“Right. She...she helped me. Because, Jay, if I’d gone with them it would have been real bad for me. Because…” she swallows, takes a sip of her own wine, swallows again. Her mouth is so dry. This is her last chance to lie, to do what she should do, to leave this reminder of her old life behind her and move forward into eternity alone.

She doesn’t want to.

“Because,” she croaks, “I’m, uh. I can’t die.”

Jay blinks at her, then takes another sip of wine. “Well, obviously.”

Nile gapes. Jay rolls their eyes again.

“Freeman, honestly. I was standing right there. You were _gushing_ blood. I was holding your hand when your heart stopped. You were dead when the medevac got there, and then when we got back to base you weren't. And we thought the doctors must have worked some miracle, but that you’d be totally wrecked. And then, there you were. Sitting up, talking, walking. Not even a scar.”

Right. Well, Jay’s not stupid. Nor is Dizzy. Of course they all knew something strange had happened. She just hadn’t expected Jay to be so unsurprised.

“What does Dizzy think?”

Jay shrugs. “I don’t know. I think she thought it had something to do with Merrick, you know that pharma company where the exec died a few years ago? Turns out he had some contract to practice some experimental stuff, super fucked up ethically. A bunch of people got in deep shit for it after he died and it was all exposed. But I’m not sure. We kind of...well, we haven’t talked in a while. Dizzy’s still in, on another tour.”

“And you?” Nile asks.

“I’m out. I’m at NYU now. Social work.”

It’s a relief to hear. “Nice.”

Jay shrugs. “Anyway. So you left. With some woman.”

Nile nods, then reaches across the table and catches Jay’s hand in her own, squeezing. Jay starts a bit when their skin touches, then stares across at her. “Jay, I’m going to tell you the truth, but you have to promise me, you can’t tell anyone. It's going to sound crazy, but if you do, it puts me at risk. It could kill my family. Do you understand? You _must_ keep quiet about this.” Andy’s going to kill her when she finds out about this conversation. Literally. And then maybe again when she revives.

Jay nods, looking confused. “Your family? Is your mom…”

Nile shakes her head. “No, not my family. My...my _team_ , I guess. Because Jay, there’s more people like me. People who can’t die. We heal when we’re hurt, we don’t age. The woman who came for me, Andy, she doesn’t even remember how old she is. The youngest before me is over two hundred.”

Jay stares at her, then laughs slightly. “You’re shitting me.”

Nile shakes her head. “No.”

Jay picks up their wine glass and downs it. Nile refills it for them, and they drink deeply again. The waiter brings a bread basket and Nile picks up a roll, picking it apart and rolling it between her fingers. 

“I’ve been with them since it happened. They helped me, took care of me, they’ve been teaching me. It’s been...well, you understand it would be hard for me to go home, or try explaining this to anyone who didn’t _see_ it like you did. I really...I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this, either.”

Jay reaches back for her hand and squeezes it. “I don’t...Nile, it’s pretty unbelievable, but I believe you. I do. And I won’t do anything that could hurt you, I promise. I wouldn’t.”

She looks in their eyes and sees the truth there, those dark, warm eyes she lost herself in the first time Jay smiled at her and never quite managed to forget. She dreams about Jay still, sometimes dreams that leave her wet and grinding against the mattress, sometimes dreams that leave her weeping and empty. 

Maybe it’s desperate, this clinging to something familiar, something old, something loved. Maybe she’s leading herself into heartbreak, into the kind of crushing grief that consumed Booker whole, that she saw in Andy’s eyes when they first met, before Quỳnh came back. Maybe this is a horrible idea.

But then—maybe it’s not. Maybe her story doesn’t have to be the same as Booker’s. One night, when he found her sitting on the couch of an old house in New Zealand crying after midnight, Joe had told her that he’d taken Nicky back to his family a few years after they met, before they found Quỳnh and Andy. They’d gone back to Mahdia and spent ten years with his family. They hadn’t known of his immortality, and they’d left when it became difficult to disguise their lack of aging. Joe said leaving them was the hardest thing he’s ever done, but when Nile asked if he regretted going back to them he’d shaken his head and smiled. 

Her story can be different.

She wants to build it into something different.

“I dream about you,” she blurts, and Jay looks surprised, then grief-stricken. Their hand tightens around Nile’s.

“I dream about you, too,” they say softly. “Mostly you dying. But sometimes better things.” They swallow, gulp more wine, clear their throat. “Tell me you’re not going to run away after this. Tell me I’ll see you again.”

“It’s hard,” she says. “We move around a lot.” She wants to say yes. She wants to stay here at this table with Jay forever.

Jay says, “I dreamed you dying for five years. Nile. _Tell me I’ll see you again_.”

She bites her lip.

She has eternity on this earth, and Jay does not. She has endless youth, and Jay does not.

But she loves them. And it seems an awful waste of years, even if they are infinite, to walk away from love.

“You’ll see me again,” she says, then takes a further leap. “You can take me home tonight, if you want to.” Her stomach flutters the way it did the first time they kissed.

And Jay smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer here to say I don't really know how the Marines work and the portrayals of these characters are not in any way meant to excuse or positively portray the American military industrial complex. 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	2. Debts, Andy/Celeste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Favorite Headcanon. Andy always repays her debts. (Andy/Celeste, E)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A favorite headcanon of mine is that Andy and Celeste definitely fucked at some point, whether it was after she helped Andy with her wound or sometime later. So...here's that.

She always repays her debts.

Always.

So, a few months after London, when her side doesn’t hurt her every time she moves, she leaves the others with nothing but a note. They’ll be worried, but this is also proof—to them, to herself—that she can still take care of herself. That she doesn’t need a keeper.

It’s funny, she thinks on the train, how little she feels. There are echoes of sadness, at the thought of leaving Joe and Nicky behind, at never seeing Booker again, at abandoning Nile when she is still so new. And grief, of course, for Quỳnh. She’d always believed they would see each other again, deep down, and now...well. It seems unlikely. Other than that, all she feels is a tired sort of relief that it’s going to be over soon. That she can finally rest.

Tired relief and the smallest amount of, _well, fuck it._ She doesn’t know how long she’s got left, and odds are she won’t make it until her hair starts to grey. So she might as well do everything her instincts and desires tell her to.

She walks into the pharmacy half expecting to see another worker, but no, she’s there. Dark lipstick and ripped jeans and kind eyes. She’s ringing up another customer and Andy slides into the aisles, picking up a box of bandages and a bag of candy. She feels the moment Celeste’s gaze catches on her, feels it hold on. 

She sets down the bandages and candy on the counter. Celeste’s eyes flick to her shoulder, where the stab wound was. 

“How is it?” she asks.

“All better,” Andy replies. “Thanks to you.”

“Good,” she says, her eyes raking up and down Andy’s body as she scans the items and drops them in a plastic bag. Andy hands over some euros, Celeste slides the bag over the counter, and Andy leans in close and says, “I’d love to pay you back for the help.”

Celeste raises an eyebrow, and this is a game they’re playing now. “No need. I told you, I was happy to help, no strings attached.”

“Of course,” she says. “And I appreciate that. But what if I want a string attached?”

Celeste smiles. “Well, I suppose you could buy me a drink after I close. If you really want to.”

Andy leans even closer, lips mere inches from Celeste’s cheek. “I really want to.”

* * *

Celeste lives in a tiny flat above a bakery. It smells of sourdough and croissants when they get in, long after midnight, laughing and bumping shoulders. They’re a little drunk, a little daring. She thinks maybe Celeste doesn’t do this that often, and something about her excitement makes Andy feel younger. Or no, not young—nothing could ever make her feel young—but light. Just for the night.

They tumble onto Celeste’s bed, with sheets that smell of sage, and Celeste wastes no time in stripping her of her jacket and shirt. She runs her hands up and down her torso, skimming over her breasts, grazing her nipples, and Andy lets her head fall back, her eyes close. It’s been a long time since she’s been touched like this.

Abruptly, Celeste’s hands stop, draw back. Andy hears her short intake of breath and opens her eyes to find her staring, hands hovering over the shiny scar on her side. It’s pink and irritated still, and if she twists the wrong way too quickly it still sends a pang through her, but it is healed now, mostly. She wishes it wasn’t there at all, so Celeste would keep touching her and not look at her like she is now, like she’s something fragile. 

“What happened?”

Andy shrugs, and Celeste slowly lowers her fingers to brush along the scar, so light Andy can’t even feel it.

“It looks like a gunshot wound.”

Andy just shrugs again, though part of her wonders how Celeste would know what a gunshot wound looks like. Celeste looks back up at her, cocks her head to the side. “You are very mysterious, you know?”

She laughs, caught off guard. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“Does it hurt if I touch it?”

She shakes her head no. “You’re not going to ask?”

Celeste twitches a smile. “Your business is yours.”

Andy surges up and kisses her and Celeste opens to her beautifully. She groans into the kiss. She hasn’t been celibate recently, certainly; she had plenty of nights next to another warm body during the year they took off work. But there’s a difference between picking somebody up because you don’t have anything better to do and finding someone who lights you on fire with nothing but a glance. She knows this is just a moment, just a night, that there is no future here, and for the first time in a long time that knowledge makes her sad.

Celeste winds her arms around her and pushes her back down into the sheets, mouthing at her neck, her breasts. Andy arches against her, fingers digging into her back. Celeste closes her teeth around a nipple, bites down, tugs a bit, and Andy groans out loud. Celeste draws back, flush high on her cheekbones. “You like that?”

“Very much,” Andy breathes.

Celeste grins, a little dangerous, and closes her lips around the other nipple, pinching and pulling at the spit-slick one, an appreciative noise humming from the back of her throat as she skates her other hand down Andy’s body and swipes one finger along the wetness at her crotch. “You _do_ ,” she murmurs, sounding pleased, and Andy lets her head fall back, lets herself fall into the sensations.

Celeste might be a mere fraction of Andy’s age, but she certainly knows her way around a body. Maybe it’s the genuine attraction thrumming through her veins, or the relief at being touched like this, beautiful and uncomplicated, but Andy hasn’t felt this good in _decades_. Celeste slides down her body slowly, sucking kisses over her ribs and belly, ghosting her lips over the scar on her side so gently it almost brings tears to her eyes. Her finger slides in and out of Andy slowly, shallow, unsatisfying, but when she replaces it with her tongue Andy arches back and shouts. Celeste draws back slightly, grins up at her, and dives back in. Her hands reach back up to continue toying with Andy’s nipples and Andy is _melting_.

She takes her time, just this side of teasing. It’s clear she’s relishing it; she likes this, being buried in someone else. Andy feels it in her bones every time she moans. 

At some point Celeste’s fingers leave her nipples and dip back down into her, two of them this time, crooked just right, stroking against that spot inside her in time with the little flicks of her tongue against her clit. She scrabbles her fingers against Celeste’s shoulders, her hair, the shell of her ear, and Celeste hums against her, licks in around her fingers, sucks her clit and curls her tongue against it at the same time, and Andy comes with a shout, almost by surprise. 

Celeste doesn’t draw back until she finishes trembling, until she’s just on the edge of overstimulated and manages to pant out, “Okay, okay, I’m good, I’m so good….” Then she draws back, wipes the back of her hand over her mouth, and smiles shyly. 

“Good?” she asks, and Andy flops back against the pillows, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. “Jesus, _yes_. I’m—just give me a minute.”

Celeste crawls back up her body until she’s laying next to her, propped up on an elbow, and leans down to kiss her. Andy tastes herself in Celeste’s mouth, on Celeste’s tongue as she pushes it past her lips, and it sends heat pulsing through her body. 

“Take your time,” Celeste says, and kisses her again, and again.

Eventually she catches her breath and gathers the strength in her limbs enough to deepen the kisses, reaching between Celeste’s legs to find her wet and open, gasping at the brush of her fingers. If Celeste is good at this, Andy is inevitably better by sheer centuries of practice, and she’s determined to give Celeste the best fuck of her life. Repayment for her own orgasm, and for the gentle fingers and the salve and the butterfly bandages months ago. 

“Oh,” Celeste says above her as Andy slides down her body, slides her mouth over her and sucks. “ _Oh_.” She draws her legs up, parts them beautifully, clutches at the sheets and lets out a little laugh that trails off into a moan. “Oh, you — you’re _good_ at this.”

She draws back long enough to say “thank you,” and then dives in deeper. She knows enough tricks to drive anyone wild, but each body is different in what it wants. She listens, she feels Celeste’s minute reactions, her twitches, her moans, her groans, her tensing and relaxing, and moves with it. She doesn’t react as much to Andy’s fingers exploring her, but her moans get breathy when she spears her tongue deep. When Andy spreads her open and flicks her tongue as quickly as she can over her clit she gasps and arches up, fingers scrabbling in Andy’s hair before she pulls back quickly and fists the sheets instead. Andy pulls her hand back and settles it in her hair. “I like it,” she says, and Celeste groans. “Show me where you want me.”

Celeste does, adjusting her, pulling her up a bit, grinding down into her, and it feels so good Andy thinks she could come again just grinding against the sheets. She does a little, but keeps her focus on Celeste, on all the ways she can move her tongue, on the growing, pleasant ache in her jaw. Celeste cries out when she spears her tongue deep and grazes her clit with her teeth and she has an idea. She pulls back, gets her arms around Celeste, and flips them so Celeste is straddling her, ignoring the spike of pain from her side at the strain.

Celeste is flushed, panting, swaying above her. “What—”

“Sit on my face,” Andy demands, hips bucking a little at her own words. She can’t help it. Celeste looks shocked. “Are you sure? I’ve never—I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It won’t hurt me,” she assures her. “I like it. You’ll like it too, I promise.”

Celeste moves slowly, unsure of how to position herself, hands braced on the headboard. She hovers for a moment over Andy, and Andy is filled with her scent, the sight of her. A drip of slick or spit or both lands on her lip and she licks it up slowly, eyes locked on Celeste’s. Celeste groans again, closes her eyes for a moment, and sinks down on her.

This angle means she can get her tongue deep, deeper than before, and Celeste moans at the intrusion and hunches over her. Andy holds her, caressing her ass, her lower back, closes her eyes and breathes through her nose and lets herself float away on the sensations.

After a few minutes Celeste is gasping and bouncing up and down ever so slightly, grinding down a bit onto her, one hand still braced on the headboard, the other tight in Andy’s hair. She’s fluttering around Andy’s tongue, so very close, when she shifts her weight slightly, changing the angle. Andy opens her eyes just as Celeste’s fingers curl into her again, pumping in and out. Andy groans at the feeling, humping up into her and raising her head a little to stay deep inside her and Celeste moans and comes apart. She’s panting and shaking above her but the rhythm of her fingers doesn’t even hitch, pulling Andy through it and into her own orgasm.

They shake together for a moment, suspended in it, and then collapse slowly down into a pile of sweaty limbs. Celeste rolls off her and buries her face in her shoulder, fingers still warm inside her. Andy curls an arm around her and drops a kiss on her bare shoulder. Celeste pulls her fingers out, wipes them on the ruined sheets, and drapes her arm over Andy’s stomach. They lay there for a long moment, just breathing together, until Andy realizes she’s in danger of dropping off to sleep.

“I should go,” she mumbles, extracting herself from Celeste, groaning at the unfamiliar ache in her limbs as she rolls to the edge of the bed and stands. She hasn’t had sex since mortality caught up with her; she had never realized how much it takes out of you, how pleasant a lasting ache in the jaw can be, how good it feels to stretch tired legs out. “I have to be up early, I don’t want to wake you when I go.” It’s a lie, but it’s easier than the truth, which is that the longer she stays the harder it will be to leave.

A hand catches her wrist. Celeste looks sleepy and fucked out, but she smiles at her, a bit hesitant.

“You don’t have to,” she says. “You can stay for tonight. I don’t mind waking up.”

She should leave. She should go back to her family, who are worried about her. She should not let herself get comfortable, wake up to Celeste’s face in the daylight or the scent of brewing coffee or fresh pastries from downstairs. 

She sits back down on the bed, hesitates, then lays down.

“Okay,” she says. “Just for tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	3. Milk and Honey, Andy/Nile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Universe. The rule is simple. Send a tribute every spring, and the snows stop. The earth will warm, the soil will soften, the tender grass will sweep across the hills and the rivers will run again with snowmelt. Withhold the tribute, and Winter keeps her grip on the land. (Andy/Nile with some vague Andy/Nile/Quỳnh, M)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The day three prompt is Alternate Universe, so I went for a weird fantasy/mythology mashup (thanks to Andy's "Worshipped as a god" comment). This is not meant to mirror any real religion or myth, but it is inspired by an amalgamation of symbols and myths related to the passage of winter into spring from various European and Central Asian traditions. 
> 
> Going to put a warning here for dub-con. Though there is enthusiastic consent from all parties, there is a definite power dynamic, as well as the pressure to, you know, perform ritual sex or else be faced with an endless winter. If you're worried about the exact content, I'll put a description in the end notes.
> 
> I'm very tired of snow and cold, so here's to spring in the northern hemisphere!

The rule is simple. Send a tribute every spring, and the snows stop. The earth warms, the soil softens, the tender grass sweeps across the hills and the rivers run again with snowmelt.

Withhold the tribute, and Winter keeps her grip on the land.

And, of course, the caveat: Winter will only accept a young woman as a tribute, a woman just entering the prime of her life, a woman vibrant as new grass on the swells of the hills. They say the winter needs a reminder of the beauty of spring, to allow it to come again. They also say, eyes shifting and dropping their voices low, that Winter wants a young woman for  _ other reasons _ .

None of the young women ever return. It’s like the snow and ice eats them whole.

It is late in the winter, the days growing slightly longer but the land still locked under snow, when Nile is chosen. Her mother weeps and clings to her and her brother watches, angry, as the priestesses dress her in fine robes, crown her with evergreen boughs, drape her with garlands of dried flowers from the long ago summer. He wishes to go in her place, to spare her this fate, but he cannot. And this is a great honor, she reminds herself and her family. It is a comfort to know they will be well taken care of, honored when she is gone.

The trek to the mountains is a long one, cold and dark through the frozen steppe. Winter lives at the top of the highest peak, where the snow never melts, but the two warriors who accompanied her leave her at the base of the slopes, where the grasslands turns to forest. They take the heavy furs from her and leave her shivering. She could run, but she would only die faster in the cold. She carries nothing but a vial of milk and another of honey, more reminders of the riches warmth brings. Winter is said to love the taste of honey, to glut herself on milk, only able to taste them when someone brings them to her through the dark and cold.

She waits at the edge of the forest. No one comes for her. Her fingers are frozen and numb and when she finally settles, huddled up at the base of a tree, she wonders if all the tributes just freeze to death, buried in ice and snow, and the winter draws back anyway. She wonders if it’s all a lie. She wonders what lucky, hungry creature will happen upon her body first.

* * *

When she wakes she is warm. Torchlight flickers off cave walls sparkling with ice and crystal formations that look like ice. She is wrapped once more in furs. There are sounds of shuffling around her, a low murmur of voices. She wonders if she has died, if this is the afterlife.

A head appears over her, dark eyes and long, rippling black hair. It’s a face she vaguely recognizes, like something she should remember and can’t quite place. She blinks up at it, and it smiles down at her.

“Andromache!” the woman calls. “She’s awake!”

Footsteps, and someone else leans over her. She is startlingly pale, ethereally so, with dark hair and eyes that look like chips of ice. There is something about her that is ancient, that is not quite human, and Nile understands immediately that this is Winter. She should do something, say something, prostrate herself or beg for her life, but she does nothing but blink up at her, confused.

“Poor thing,” the other woman says. “She was out there too long.”

“They leave them farther and farther every year,” Winter says. “It’s not my fault it takes me longer to track them. What is your name?” She directs the last question to Nile.

Nile licks her lips. Her throat is dry. “Nile,” she manages.

“Nile,” the goddess muses. “A good name. Tell me, Nile, are you still cold? Hungry? Thirsty?”

She wonders why Winter has saved her, warmed her, worries about hunger or thirst when she is just going to kill her. “A little thirsty,” she answers.

Winter cuts her eyes to the other woman. “Quỳnh?”

The woman nods and ducks away. The goddess crouches down next to her, which is strange. A goddess kneeling for a human. She leans close. “Did you bring the milk and honey?”

Nile nods and forces her limbs to move, digging into the pouch at her belt and pulling out the vials. The goddess smiles triumphantly and takes them from her, uncorking the honey immediately. She lets a drop spill onto her finger and brings it to her lips, smearing it over them, then licking her finger. She smiles again and there is the slightest flush of color on her pale cheeks. She spills another drop onto her finger and holds it out to Nile.

She doesn’t understand what’s happening. Perhaps this drop of honey will kill her. How is she to understand Winter’s magic, to know what her purpose here is? She opens her lips and sucks the honey off Winter’s finger. It blooms on her tongue, sweet and heady, the taste of summer. The goddess smiles wider, and when Quỳnh returns with water she offers her finger to her, too. Quỳnh leans forward and delicately licks the honey off the finger before leaning in and tracing Winter’s lips with her tongue, lapping up the honey and kissing her deeply. Nile stares at them, uncomprehending, watching Winter’s cheeks flush further. 

“Quỳnh,” she says suddenly, and they draw back from each other. “Quỳnh. I remember you!”

Quỳnh smiles. “And I remember you, little thing. A little ball of energy running your mother ragged.”

“But…” she trails off, thinking back. Quỳnh's face is hazy in her mind, a glimpse across the flames of a bonfire, laughing and dancing at the summer festival, patiently explaining to all the young girls how to spin wool. “You were the tribute...wasn’t it fifteen seasons ago?

Quỳnh smiles. “Yes, that sounds right.”

Nile gapes at them. “And you’re alive?”

Winter scowls. “This again. Perhaps I should send one back after all, to dispel that ridiculous notion.”

“They might stop sending them, then, my love. Besides, you have given them the chance. No one wants to go back to a place that sent them willingly to their death.”

Winter huffs and rolls her eyes in a startlingly human gesture.

Nile is still catching up. “You’re not going to kill me?”

Winter huffs again. “What good would a dead girl be to me? No, of course not. You bring the milk and honey, we complete the ritual, and then you have a choice: you either stay here with me, if you like, or you go over the mountains to the city by the sea with my blessing and coin in your pocket.”

“The ritual?” Nile asks slowly, and Quỳnh giggles.

“Ah, yes,” Winter says, and beckons for her to sit up. She does, slowly, and the goddess leans close, smearing more honey over her lips before leaning in and kissing her, long and languid. Nile’s mouth opens in surprise and the goddess only deepens the kiss in response, licking into her, tasting of winter wind and honey. When she pulls back, she leaves Nile wanting.

“The ritual,” she says. “I cover you with honey and eat you whole.” She winks and grins, quick and bright. “With your permission, of course.”

Nile’s mouth goes even drier. “And if I refuse?”

Winter shrugs. “Spring comes later, much later. It will still come, but the season will be short.” She leans close. “Do not feel as though you must say yes. Some seasons are long, some are short. Such is the way it has always been and always will be. You would simply help me thaw sooner.”

Winter’s calm tone is reassuring. She is far from what Nile expected, and heat lingers in Nile’s body from the simple kiss. She’s experimented before, messy kisses and clumsy touches in the dark with boys and girls who didn’t know any more than she does about these things. Winter’s lips and fingers seem far more skilled. She wants to taste her.

She lays back. “I give you permission.” 

Winter’s eyes flash and she leans down to unwrap the furs from Nile’s body, divesting her of the robes and laying the garlands of flowers to the side. Quỳnh removes Winter’s furs for her, caressing her body as she does, and then Winter hovers over her, naked and pale like the snows. She lifts the vial of honey and pours it over Nile’s body, the golden liquid warm against her skin. It pools at her collarbones, in her navel, dripping over her thighs. Winter pours extra in the space between her legs and her body pulses at the feeling.

Winter leans close. “Before we begin, I think you should know my real name.”

“Winter?” Nile whispers, lost in those ice-blue eyes. Winter smiles again, chuckles. “Andromache.”

“Andromache,” Nile repeats. The name flows off her lips like the honey coating her body. It suits her.

“Nile,” Andromache murmurs, and leans in to lick a long, cold line up her neck. Nile shudders and closes her eyes.

Andromache covers her body with kisses, with licks and sucks and little bites. Nile shudders under her, cries out, clenches her hands against the furs, and, later, against Andromache’s smooth, cool skin. With every lick of honey off Nile’s body, she gains more color in her cheeks, her breath and touch grow warmer, she seems to grow softer. A few times, Nile catches sight of Quỳnh sitting a little behind her, watching them, mouth open and touching herself in the most intimate place, the place Andromache spends the most time on as she devours Nile. Her tongue and fingers explore, touch places she doesn’t even know she had within her, until Nile is shaking apart under her, unsure of what she’s feeling aside from knowing she wishes it would never stop. Nile feels herself soaking wet, more than just the sticky moisture of the honey, and Andromache drinks it all in, pleased hums making their way to Nile’s ears.

Eventually Andromache herself cries out and pulls away, panting. She’s flushed and sweaty, almost human-looking now, her eyes closer to the green spring grasses than the blue of cold ice. She stands quickly, scooping up the vial of milk, and moves towards the cave entrance. Quỳnh moves closer, offers a hand. “Come,” she says. “You’ll want to see this.”

Nile allows her to help her stand, still a little shaky on her feet, and wrap a fur around her. They follow Andromache to the entrance and Nile’s mouth drops open at the view. They are indeed on the highest peak of the mountains, staring down at ice and snow and craggy rocks and ridges flowing down into the forested foothills and on to the broad, rolling steppes. She sees the frozen rivers, the big lake in the distance where they go in the summer to fish, the scattered fires from villages and campsites. The wind rips at her and she gasps into it.

Beside her, Andromache smiles and tips the vial of milk until it spills out in a thin stream, pooling on the tiny outcropping of rock outside the cave entrance and dripping down like a tiny waterfall, flowing down the steep slope. In its wake, the ice melts like it was never there at all, and in patches of soil tiny white flowers spring up from nothing.

The milk flows for far longer than it should given the size of the vial; a river of it disappearing down the mountain like an annual snowmelt stream, leaving spring in its wake. Eventually, though, Andromache sighs and corks the vial. “It is done,” she says softly. “Spring has arrived.” She bends to pluck a white flower and tucks it behind Nile’s ear. “Thank you, Nile. Now, you have the choice—you may stay with us, if you like, join our community here for as long as you want. Or you can move on to the other side of the mountains.”

She swallows. “What about my family?”

“They will be greatly honored for their sacrifice, for as long as they live.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t just go on with them thinking I’m dead.”

Quỳnh frowns. “Most families fight for the honor of sending a daughter. One less mouth to feed, and lifelong honor.”

Nile shakes her head. “Not mine.” She chews on her lips for a moment, staring down at the steppes, wondering which fire belongs to her family. Then she asks Quỳnh, “Why do you stay?”

“Because I love her,” Quỳnh says simply, and Andromache beams and blushes brighter than ever before. Then she leans close, conspiratorial. “And, of course, because we get to do  _ that _ whenever we please.”

Nile feels her face heating, and the heat washes over her, settling in her stomach, in all the places Andromache touched her. Andromache catches her eye and smiles, licking honey from the corner of her lips.

The decision almost makes itself. She wants to taste more of that honey. She wants to drown in it, with both of them, with the other women here. But she has something to do, first.

She nods decisively. “I’m going back to my family,” she says. “To say goodbye. I’ll sneak in if you want me to keep this all quiet, they would keep the secret for me. But I have to go.” 

She turns to look at Andromache, reaches forward and thumbs a spot of honey from her cheek, brings her thumb to her mouth to suck it away. Andromache follows her every move. “But then I’ll come back," she says. "And I’ll stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nile is sent as a tribute to appease the goddess of winter (Andy), who will only allow spring to come if she is satisfied with a young woman. The transformation from winter to spring involves ritual sex. Andy gives Nile the option to leave and assures her that spring will come regardless, it will just be a slower melt and a shorter season, which could be detrimental to her people. Nile is attracted to and intrigued by Andy, and she consents to the ritual. 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	4. our bodies have passage into one, Andy/Quỳnh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a song or poem. It’s months before they lay together the way they used to. (Andy/Quỳnh, E)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a cut scene from my Andromaquynh fic [Shorelines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27239881/chapters/66542665). I initially wrote this as part of the last chapter, but it didn't fit the tone and wasn't working with the flow, so I cut it. I still wanted to share it, though, so here it is, cleaned up a bit! You don't have to read Shorelines to understand it, but the basic plot follows Quỳnh after she gets out of the ocean as she tracks down the others, exacts revenge, and comes to forgiveness. 
> 
> The fic, and this scene, is inspired by "Bridge through my window" by Audre Lorde

It’s months before they lay together the way they used to. It’s not that she isn’t longing for it—it’s all she’s thought about, since she finally had Andromache by her side again. But something is still so different, so fragile between them. She knows Andromache would hate it if she knew Quỳnh was scared of hurting her, if she felt like she was being treated like a fragile thing. But she can’t help herself.

And besides, there is the other thing—she almost cannot stand being touched, sometimes. Hugs are alright, curling close in bed, Yusuf’s arm over her shoulders or Nico’s hand in hers. But sometimes Andromache touches her with such gentle reverence she can’t stand it. It makes her skin crawl. She has to shake her off, has to get up and get away from her, from all of them. She doesn’t know why. It leaves hurt on Andromache’s face, and longing, and she hates that. But she can’t help herself. 

The first job she joins them on was supposed to be simple, but then again, they’re always supposed to be simple and they almost never are. She gets shot, she dies. Gunshot wounds hurt, she finds, but they’re quicker than getting torn apart by a blade or pierced by an arrow. It’s alright. She wakes up with her head in Andromache’s lap, Andromache stroking bloody strands of hair out of her face. It’s alright. It’s a good thing to come back to.

Andromache is silent and furious for the rest of the job, and all the way back to the safe house. Quỳnh thinks she must be angry at her, for being stupid enough to die. She will not acknowledge her, has not even looked at her since she revived. So Quỳnh withdraws, too, sits in the backseat curled against the window and stares out, not speaking. Next to her, Nico quietly slides a hand into her own and she lets him stay for a few minutes for his own comfort before extracting herself. She appreciates him, appreciates the warm line of his body next to hers, the reassuring murmur of his voice talking to Yusuf, but she does not want to be touched. 

Or, she does, but only by one person. The person in the front seat, driving with a stormy look on her face. The person who will not look at her. 

Back at the safe house, they splinter off to clean themselves, to raid the kitchen, to, in Yusuf’s case, fall dead asleep on the couch still in his bloody, torn clothing. She showers the blood away quickly, and when she gets back to the bedroom Andromache is sitting on the bed. Waiting. 

“I’m sorry,” she says and Andromache darts her head up to look at her. It’s true, she rarely apologizes. But she feels like she must, for this. For dying in Andromache’s arms. 

Better her than Andromache, though.

“It’s not—” Andromache cuts herself off, closes her eyes, heaves a sigh. “It’s not your fault. I’m overreacting.”

She keeps her distance, slides over to the dresser to drape the damp towel over it, sweeps her wet hair out of her face into a bun at the top of her head. “I am not sorry for protecting you, but I am sorry seeing me like that hurt you.”

Andromache rubs her hand over her eyes. “It was just…a reminder.”

She cocks her head. “Of what?”

When Andromache looks at her, she looks ancient. Like she’s breaking apart. “That you’re still coming back. That I’m leaving you behind. And it’s good, I wouldn’t want you to...to be like me. But it’s a reminder how unfair it all is.”

“Life is unfair.” This is what she has learned, after four thousand years.

Andromache drops her head and huffs a laugh. “Yeah.” She looks lonely, small and sad.

Quỳnh goes to her, drops to her knees between her legs, doesn’t touch because she’s not sure Andromache wants it. “Andromache,” she says, and Andromache reaches out and tips her chin up, fingers cool on her face. She cannot help herself. She lifts up and kisses her.

Andromache’s hands cup her face immediately as she deepens the kiss and Quỳnh stiffens for a moment before relaxing. Andromache starts to pull back but she holds her hands to her face and leans in. She wants the taste of Andromache, wants the touch of her fingers. Wants _more_.

Andromache’s hands move to her shoulders and tug at her until she’s standing, until Andromache can take her by the waist and tip her onto the bed. She lands with a bounce and a tiny sound escapes her—a giggle? Andromache hovers above her, looks down at her with wonder, and smiles.

“Okay?” She whispers, and Quỳnh nods. She wants Andromache above her, around her, until she’s the only thing she knows. Andromache dives back in and Quỳnh wraps her arms around her and holds on for dear life.

This is what she has been dreaming of. The feel of Andromache on her body, the touch of her lips, the way her hands fit into her every hollow perfectly, like shards of broken pottery pressed back together. Quỳnh has not forgotten the sounds she makes, the hitches of breath, the pitch of her moans. She has not forgotten how wicked her tongue is when she swirls it around a nipple or drags it up the side of her neck to the spot right behind her ear that always makes her squirm. She has not forgotten how Andromache likes to be touched, either—the way she likes to feel it, fingers tight on her hips, nails scratching down her back, bites sucked into her neck and the swell of her breasts. Now, Quỳnh will leave a mark, and the thought almost draws her out and away, but then she remembers—Andromache always passed her fingers over the places where bruises or scratches should be, always looked a little sad that the evidence of their lovemaking was wiped away so quickly. So she continues, and Andromache responds to it so beautifully, eyes fluttering shut, mouth open and pink and panting.

Andromache slides low on her body, running her fingers through the damp hair at her groin, and looks up at her through her eyelashes.

“Do you want it?” she whispers, voice like gravel. And Quỳnh nods.

Andromache closes her eyes for a moment, rests her forehead on Quỳnh's belly, breathes. When she looks up there are tears in her eyes.

“You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” she says hoarsely. “You have no idea how many nights I dreamt of this and woke up thinking you were by my side.” She draws back slightly. “Tell me this is real. Tell me this isn’t a dream.”

Quỳnh reaches down and pinches her nipple, twists it until Andromache gasps. “It’s real,” she says, and Andromache laughs and drops back down between her legs. Quỳnh fists a hand in her hair and holds it tight, tugs her up to the right angle—something else she remembers perfectly, muscle memory, the vision of Andromache between her legs now blurring with a millennia of memories. She closes her eyes and feels.

The heat builds quickly. Her body has been waiting for this, even as her mind has shied away. She’s dreamed of this, too, since she came out of the water. Dreamed of it and woke sweaty and aching, Andromache slumbering next to her, the inches between them like an ocean. Andromache swirls her tongue, sucks at her clit and flicks against it, runs her hands up and down Quỳnh's thighs. Her hands were always smooth before, unblemished skin against unblemished skin. Now callouses scratch against Quỳnh and she finds she likes it. Andromache groans against her, sending vibrations through her clit, and scrapes a fingernail over her nipple. 

Quỳnh arches up and comes with a cry, shivering and writhing against Andromache. 

It feels like a rebirth. It feels like absolution.

She’s only sorry she finishes so quickly. She would have hung there, suspended in pleasure with Andromache between her legs, forever.

It takes her a long moment to come back to herself, the pleasure washing over her in waves, and when she does Andromache is still bent between her legs, head down.

“Andromache,” she croaks, voice wrecked, and Andromache’s shoulders shake.

“Andromache?” she asks again, and tugs at her hair a little, forcing her head up.

She’s crying. Silently, tears streaking down her cheeks to mix with the mess of spit and slick around her mouth and chin. She shakes her head, tries to look away. Quỳnh tugs harder and Andromache winces, moves up to avoid Quỳnh pulling too hard at her hair. Distantly, she wonders if she’ll ever be able to love her as gently as she deserves, if she will always be this creature of hard and broken edges who pulls too hard and leaves bruises where she’s touched.

Andromache drops down next to her but won’t meet her eyes. She buries her face in the pillow and, after a moment, Quỳnh relaxes her grip on her hair and starts petting at it gently instead. It seems right. It seems like it might be soothing. She remembers the way Andromache used to melt under her when she rubbed at the back of her neck, the base of her skull. She does so, and Andromache groans as her shoulders lose some of their tension.

“Why are you crying?” she asks.

“I missed you,” she mumbles, muffled into the pillow, and then turns her face into Quỳnh's neck instead. Quỳnh moves an arm around her and clutches at her tightly, enough to leave more bruises where her fingertips dig into her bicep. There’s a fear that, if she loosens her grip, Andromache will simply disappear between now and morning.

She nudges Andromache’s face out of its hiding place and kisses her cheek, her eyebrow, the shell of her ear. The corner of her mouth where the dimple surfaces when she grins, really grins. The paper-thin skin of her eyelids, the dark shadows where her wet eyelashes sweep her skin. She kisses her neck, the hollow of her throat, up her collarbone. At some point, still weeping, Andromache starts to kiss back and they lay there for a long moment, mouths open to each other, breathing the same air, until Quỳnh bites down on her lower lip and skates her fingers down the long plane of her body. Andromache stiffens and curses softly when her fingers brush against her clit and groans when Quỳnh curves two of them up into her.

Yes, she remembers this too, the exact angle Andromache likes, the way she likes four fingers but never the entire hand, the exact rhythm her thumb should rub against the clit while her fingers stroke inside her.

She imagines Andromache has taken many lovers since the last time they did this and she hopes most were good. But no one will ever know her body as Quỳnh does. No one will ever touch her quite like this. No one will ever give it to her better.

Quỳnh wants to remind her of that, now.

Andromache lifts a hand to her mouth, biting down on the meat of her palm, but Quỳnh reaches up and pulls it away. She wants to hear her. She waited for five hundred years to hear her. She doesn’t care if they keep the rest of the house up. She wouldn’t care if they woke the whole city.

Andromache doesn’t disappoint. She sings for her, and Quỳnh revels in the sound. When Andromache stiffens, shaking and fluttering around her fingers, she smiles in triumph. It feels like a battle won. When Andromache calls out her name, arched against the pillows, eyes fluttering closed, it feels like she’s claimed a priceless war prize.

She pulls out carefully, makes to wipe her hands on the sheets, but Andromache grasps her wrist and brings them to her mouth, instead. She licks them clean, mouth warm around them in a way that leaves Quỳnh hot all over again. She doesn’t break eye contact the entire time, eyes still shining with unshed tears. When she’s finished, she presses a kiss to each knuckle and then holds both Quỳnh's hands in her own, pressed up against her forehead, eyes closed for a long moment. Quỳnh leans forward and presses her own forehead against their joined hands, closing her own eyes, listening to their breathing as it falls into tandem. 

“I missed you too,” she whispers, and Andromache huffs a laugh she feels against her own lips and curls ever closer.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How tf old is Quỳnh supposed to be anyway.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	5. A Love Unknowable, Andy/Quỳnh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showing Intimacy. There is a part of her that is still intimidated by Andromache. There is a part of her that feels she is unknowable, and to try is to fail. There is a part of her that is too proud to be vulnerable, to tell Andromache of her deepest feelings and to chance rejection.
> 
> Or, Andy and Quỳnh, early on. (Andy/Quỳnh, T)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and sweet, because real life took over today!

The woman is difficult to read.

Companionship is sweet, and the knowledge that her dreams weren’t simply hopeful hallucinations is a blessed relief. In the decades they have traveled together, the slow discovery of mutual attraction, of exploring each others’ bodies, of gentle touches and desperate fucks, has been exhilarating. And having someone at her back again, protecting her, _caring_ for her, is wonderful, as wonderful as it is to have someone to love and protect.

To love.

Yes, because Quỳnh loves Andromache, for all her prickly edges and the way she sometimes turns flat and distant and withdrawn. She loves her for the way she cradles her when she’s coming back to life, for her wickedly skilled tongue, for her smile. Quỳnh would tear apart kingdoms for that smile.

So Quỳnh loves her, and sometimes she thinks Andromache loves her back. Sometimes. And then she withdraws, goes distant, leaves Quỳnh behind in an inn or roadhouse and returns in the morning looking tired but refreshed, and Quỳnh knows she’s gone off to fuck someone else and wonders _why_. Wonders what she’s doing wrong, to make Andromache turn away from her. She shouted at her once for it, but didn’t manage to say any of the things she really felt and Andromache scoffed at her jealousy and told her she might try the whorehouses herself if she’s so upset. And Quỳnh wanted to say, _it’s not the sex, it’s not the others, it’s the way you go a thousand miles distant from me, like you’re expecting me to be gone someday. Like you don’t want to get too close._

There is a part of her that is still intimidated by Andromache. She is so ancient, she has seen so much. She withholds herself from Quỳnh. There is a part of her that feels she is unknowable, and to try is to fail. There is a part of her that is too proud to be vulnerable, to tell Andromache of her deepest feelings and to chance rejection.

So she lets it go, lets it fester, loves from afar and takes what Andromache gives her with a greedy sort of desperation. And the years pass.

And then there is a horrible day where the absolute worst happens: Quỳnh has the unfortunate experience of having her head entirely separated from her body. Her head goes in one direction, a prize for the man who killed her. Her body stays crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood. She, of course, has no recollection of this experience, but manages to piece it together from Andromache’s broken, panicked descriptions later on. Somehow, in her two thousand years of prior experience, Andromache has had every limb removed besides her head. They grow back, but it takes a long time. And the head...if they could die permanently from anything, this would seem to be it.

She wakes to excruciating, blinding pain. She can’t see, she can’t hear, she can’t even breathe. But she can feel and there are strong arms wrapped around her, holding her with crushing force. She can feel the trembling of the body holding her, and the heaving of the chest.

She must die again, or at least pass out. For a long time everything is muddled and awful, sound and sight coming back in confusing, nauseating bursts. She hears Andromache weeping, calling her name. She sees snatches of blue sky and the rust of drying blood. Andromache begs, voice wrecked, for her to wake, but she can’t say anything to reassure her. She’s not even sure she has a mouth yet, or vocal cords.

When she finally, fully wakes, they’ve moved. They’re under a copse of trees and she sees their silvery leaves swaying in the breeze against a dusky sky. She’s warm, wrapped in furs, and her head is cradled on something soft and warm. Andromache’s lap. Her hand reaches down to brush a strand of hair out of Quynh’s eyes, and she whispers her name like she’s afraid the sound will hurt. It does, a bit, but Quỳnh blinks at her, reaches up a heavy arm, cups her cheek.

“Quỳnh,” Andromache whispers, folding over her until their foreheads are touching. “Quỳnh, I thought you’d left me. I thought you’d left me alone.”

She still can’t speak, gathering herself, trying to get her bearings, but she closes her eyes and fists her hand in Andromache's hair, holding her close. Andromache's breath brushes her cheek, and then she presses her lips to Quỳnh's and Quỳnh tastes the salt of her tears on her tongue. 

She doesn’t stop kissing her until Quỳnh is able to sit up and embrace her. They hold each other close for a long time, and then Andromache whispers in her ear, so softly, “You can’t leave me behind.”

“I would never,” she vows, because where could she go? What would she be without this extraordinary woman at her side? Where else would she possibly want to be?

“Please,” Andromache says. “I love you.”

Quỳnh freezes for a long moment, breath caught in her chest, floating on those words she’s been longing to hear for so long.

Eventually she manages to choke out, “I love you too,” and Andromache holds her tighter. 

“I wasn’t sure,” she says. “I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to stay with me, had to fight with me. I wanted you to feel like you had a choice, but now I...I don’t think I could live without you, Quỳnh.”

She pulls back, cups Andromache’s cheek again, looks straight into her grey-green eyes. “I have loved you since the first moment I met you, Andromache. There is no place I would rather be.”

Andromache does not cry often. In fact, this incident might have produced the most tears Quỳnh has ever seen from her. But still, more fall as Andromache draws their heads together again, stars into Quỳnh's eyes, and kisses her again and again. Despite the pain, despite the disorientation, despite the fact that she just experienced what she expects will be the worst feeling she will ever have in her very long life, Quỳnh has never been happier.

* * *

Millennia later, she wakes from a dream and sits up straight in bed, cursing. Beside, her Andromache rolls over and murmurs, “Bad dream?”

“No!” She says. “Did you not see them? Again? In the _bathhouse_?” For the last few years they have been tortured with dreams of the two new immortals. Nearly two years after meeting one another, the two are circling each other like wary dogs. Yusuf draws Nicolò when he sleeps, Nicolò's gaze catches on the lines of Yusuf’s torso when he’s bathing or changing clothes, Yusuf trips into a well as he watches Nicolò split wood, Nicolò takes himself in his hand and comes whispering Yusuf’s name. And yet, they say nothing. They hide their gazes from each other and snipe and snap insults to cover it up, as though they are still enemies.

“They are insufferable!” she grouses. “Did you see? Nicolò _nearly_ kissed Yusuf then, but then he drew back and claimed he was simply observing a blemish on his chin! _How_ can they be this dense?”

Andromache rolls over and buries her face in Quỳnh's hip. “I fear we cannot pass judgement on them, beloved, given it took fifty years and a beheading for us to confess to each other.”

“You mean for _you_ to confess to me.”

Andromache pinches her side. “I seem to remember your reluctance in sharing your true feelings as well,” she says, and yawns. “But we got there eventually.”

“So we did,” Quỳnh agrees, and wiggles back under Andromache’s arms to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	6. feeling fade away, Andy/Nile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Favorite trope (huddling for warmth). “Me too,” Nile says. “But we gotta stay awake. You can tell me about all the other famous people you’ve fucked through the ages, okay? Dredge up those memories instead of falling asleep.”
> 
> Andy huffs. “Long list.”
> 
> Or, Andy's never had to think about hypothermia before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One my favorite enduring tropes is huddling for warmth (and the inevitable resulting hurt/comfort). I'm not super happy with this fill tbh, but real life took over today and I was at work for like ten hours, so this is what I've got.

Nile isn’t _blaming_ Andy for her sudden mortality, exactly. It’s not like she can control it. It’s just that Nile has _no fucking clue_ what she’s doing, and Andy seems hell-bent on teaching her everything she knows and (for some reason) training her to be the next leader (why not Joe? Why not Nicky? Hell, she’d take _Booker_ as a leader over her 28-year old ass, and that’s saying something). That means she and Andy spend a lot of time alone together over the year or so following London, which is ostensibly because Andy wants to train her and show her the world, but really because Joe and Nicky kindly but firmly told them they were taking six months off and not to bother them unless there was a real emergency, thank you very much, they’d be on Malta if they really needed them.

Malta. Nile would like to be on Malta. She doesn’t even really know where it is, exactly, but it sounds sunny.

Unfortunately, she is not in Malta. No, she’s stuck somewhere in the Canadian Rockies, and it is not sunny. It's snowing, and she and Andy have been hiking through worsening conditions for nearly the entire day. They’re both freezing and soaked, and while it’s very uncomfortable for Nile, she’s well aware that it’s more than just uncomfortable for Andy. It’s life-threatening.

Andy, characteristically, is dealing with it by completely ignoring her mortality and vulnerability to minor issues like, say, hypothermia or losing toes to frostbite. She’s slogging through the snow like everything’s going exactly to plan, determined to keep going. Nile has said at least three times that they should stop and find shelter, and Andy replied that she better get used to being uncomfortable and that they’re only ten miles or so from the cabin they own out here. She says it’s a good training exercise. When Nile pointed out that she is no longer invulnerable, Andy snapped that a little cold never killed anyone (patently untrue) and put on a burst of speed that left Nile panting to keep up.

At least it warms her up a little. 

The cabin is either way more than ten miles away, or they’re lost. Nile is willing to bet on the latter, because even someone like Andy would have difficulty navigating through a white-out. She refuses to use GPS, and Nile’s phone is an old enough model now that it dies immediately when it’s out in below-freezing temperatures for longer than an hour. So, they’re lost, it’s getting dark, and Andy is visibly slowing down. When she stumbles over a rock, Nile’s anxiety really starts to build. When she falls to her knees after her shoulder slams into a tree truck, Nile panics. 

“We’re stopping,” she blurts. “We need to find shelter.”

Andy scoffs, stands upright, and tips over again. She looks slightly confused, which could be because she’s so completely unused to being actually compromised, or just be an indication of her body shutting down. Nile’s not taking chances. She hauls Andy’s arm over her shoulders and starts dragging her, trying to remember everything she’s ever learned about cold-weather survival, which unfortunately isn’t much.

Lucky for them, they stumble on a cave. Literally stumble. Nile hits her head on the rock outcropping, and, well— _cave_ is a generous word for it. It’s a sheltered overhang, but when she shines her headlamp under it the rocks are mercifully snow-free. At least they won’t be buried alive if they huddle in here. She pulls Andy in and she doesn’t even protest, which is how she knows they’re in really deep shit. 

Once Andy’s sitting down, Nile wraps her in her own coat and starts piling snow over the front, trying to build a wall to seal them in. She remembers vaguely that this is why snow shelters work—a small space, even if it’s made of four walls of snow, is easier to heat with body heat, and snow deflects heat and keeps the space warmer. She leaves a tiny space and wriggles back in to join Andy, whose eyes are closed.

“Shit!” she says, and slaps her cheek lightly. “Andy! Andy, you gotta stay awake.”

Andy cracks her eyes open. “We should keep moving,” she mumbles.

“Oh my god,” Nile says, because only Andy would literally be succumbing to hypothermia and still be so stubborn. She strips her coat off Andy, then Andy’s coat and the fleece she wears beneath it. She spreads the fleece and the tarp she was carrying in her pack below them and continues to strip Andy. This is the other thing she remembers—huddling close, shared body heat, skin to skin contact.

Andy raises an eyebrow as she pulls off her shirt. “You coulda just asked, Nile,” she slurs. “I woulda said yes…”

That is not something she can process right now, so she ignores her and starts stripping her own clothes, pushing at Andy to lay down as she does. Andy mumbles something she doesn’t catch, but goes without argument. When Nile is 99% naked (she keeps her underwear on because this is just...a lot), she wraps her freezing limbs around Andy’s, pulls their coats over them, and tucks Andy’s head under her chin.

It’s bizarre, holding her like this. Andy, ancient and all-knowing and so far from weakness in any way, despite her new mortality. She’s taller than Nile, and broader, but her body feels fragile under her hands. She sighs, and her breath brushes hot against Nile’s throat. Nile tightens her arms around her and shivers.

Andy’s eyes flutter shut again and Nile pats at her cheek again. “Andy, hey, Andy? Come on, stay awake. Talk to me. Tell me a story.”

Andy blinks and grumbles,” Don’ have any stories.”

“You’re like seven thousand years old. Of course you have stories! You’ve told me plenty of them!”

“Right,” Andy says. “Told you enough.”

“Okay, fine,” Nile says. “I’ll tell _you_ a story, then. So, when I was in high school, I was on yearbook, right?”

“Yearbook?” Andy murmurs.

“Yeah, like—of course you don’t know what yearbook is. So yearbook is like this book we put together every year that has everybody’s picture in it, and, like, highlights from the school year, clubs and stuff, memories.”

“You wanna _remember_ high school?” Andy says, and Nile laughs.

“Well, not really, but looking back on it ten years later is kind of fun. And all your friends sign it with notes and drawings and well wishes, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds nice,” Andy murmurs, eyes falling shut again. “That many friends.”

Her eyelashes are very long, dark against her pale cheeks. Nile tears her gaze away, holds her tighter. She would like to imagine that Andy’s getting slightly warmer.

“Hard to have friends,” Andy murmurs. “When you’re so different than everyone.”

Well, shit. 

“You have friends,” she says. “You have us!” Meaning her, Nicky, and Joe. She’s not going to bring up Booker, and mentioning Quỳnh or Lykon just seems cruel. 

“Friends?” Andy says. “Family.”

“What about Rodin?” she asks, trying for humor.

“Quick fuck,” Andy grunts. Which is quite a thing to say about one of the greatest sculptors in history. Then again, Andy never struck her as someone with an extreme appreciation for the fine arts.

She sighs. Her anecdote about yearbook seems silly now. She rubs her hands up and down Andy’s arms and a shudder runs through her.

A shudder. Shaking and shivering is good, right? Better than being still and cold.

“I’m tired,” Andy whispers.

“Me too,” Nile says. “But we gotta stay awake. Hey, I know—you can tell me about all the other famous people you’ve fucked through the ages, okay? Dredge up those memories instead of falling asleep.”

Andy huffs. “Long list.”

“I’m sure. Come on, a few examples?” She keeps rubbing her hands up and down Andy’s arm and back. Andy shivers again and Nile starts to think they just might pull through this.

“Hector,” Andy mumbles.

“Hector?”

“Of Troy.”

She’d always thought the Trojan War was a myth, but...okay. That’s something. She vaguely remembers Hector’s wife being named Andromache. She’d never made that connection before. “Right. Who else?”

“Sappho.”

“Of course.”

“Lesbos was a very good place to be for a few decades.”

"I'm sure," she says. “Wish I could have been there.” 

“Me too,” Andy says, and tucks her face more firmly into Nile’s neck. “You woulda loved it.”

Nile thinks about fucking both Sappho and Andy, possibly at the same time, and has to cut off the resulting thought spiral. “Who else?”

“Marc Antony was an asshole, but I did it once. He had a much nicer assistant who I did more than once.”

“Cleopatra?”

Andy shrugs. “Wanted to. Never had the opportunity.” 

“You can’t win ‘em all,” Nile says, and Andy begins to shiver in earnest. 

“I did have an unforgettable evening with Nefertiti. She was something. Worthless husband, of course.” She’s starting to talk in full sentences again, no longer slurring so much. Nile might be imagining it, but it’s a bit warmer now, the small space starting to retain heat.

“Quỳnh and I had a very entertaining year in the Georgian court of Queen Tamar, too,” she says, and then cuts herself off. The silence echoes around them, the memory of Quỳnh pressing against them like a third presence, curled close.

“I want to sleep now,” Andy whispers, and Nile, assured by the shivering and the warming air around them, can’t refuse her. She prods at Andy until she turns over and Nile can spoon her, pressed close against her back, arms around her front. “I’m going to wake you up every hour,” she warns. “Just to make sure you’re okay.”

“Thank you, Nile,” Andy murmurs, and drops off immediately.

Listening to Andy’s deepening breaths, Nile tries and fails to put their conversation out of her mind. She imagines Andy’s conquests through the centuries, the thousands of people she’s taken to bed. The hundreds of times she’s fallen in love. She feels the swell of her breasts under her hands, the taught skin of her stomach, the muscles of her ass where it presses against Nile’s thighs. The soft skin at the nape of her neck.

She’s deeply asleep, and they’re completely alone. Softly, secretly, she presses her lips to the back of Andy’s neck, right below the hairline. Tasting her just for a moment, a memory to take with her and hold close through the nights ahead.

Andy doesn’t stir. The air warms around them. After a while, Nile succumbs to sleep herself. If she dreams of Andy, her lips and the curve of her body—well, no one needs to know but herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know nothing about winter survival or keeping someone with hypothermia alive in the field. 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


	7. the way a flower opens, Nile/Jay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Free choice. Nile, Jay, and a strap-on. (Nile/Jay, E)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last day! Phew, I can't believe I actually managed this!
> 
> I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the free choice day, but Nile and Jay kept pulling me back. This is a direct continuation of the first chapter. Just a note: Jay is nonbinary, but some afab language is used sparingly during the sex.

Jay lives in a tiny apartment that they evidently share with two more people. The living room has clearly been converted into a bedroom, shelves made of wood planks and cinderblocks overflowing with books, plants, and folded clothes. The galley kitchen looks like one person could barely squeeze into it. 

“Sorry for the mess,” Jay says, waving a hand around the apartment. “New York City rental prices, you know.”

Nile loves it. For a moment, she imagines herself living with Jay, halfway through an art history degree, short on cash but rich with love. This apartment is messy and crowded, but in a lived-in, loved sort of way, so different from the blank walls and cupboards of canned food in so many of their safe houses. Goussainville was the coziest, aside from the places Joe and Nicky consider to be homes for time off, and they can never go back there. 

She misses having a home.

“We’ve got the place to ourselves,” Jay continues. “At least for now. Do you want to see my room?”

“You got lucky enough to get an actual room?” 

Jay rolls their eyes. “It’s a shoebox, but yeah...I pay an extra two hundred, but at least it has a door that closes.” 

“Worth it,” Nile says, and follows them.

It really is a shoebox, barely enough room for a bed and a bookshelf. There’s a tiny closet overflowing with clothes, art on the walls, and a fire escape out the window crowded with plants.

“Well,” Jay says nervously. “Welcome to my crib.”

“It’s a pretty nice shoebox,” she replies. “I like the fire escape.”

Jay laughs. “Yeah, that’s a perk.”

They fall silent, smiling at each other, a little awkwardness descending. Nile wants to kiss them, wants to taste and devour and _feel_. She’s not sure how to make a move, where to put all that longing. This is Jay, who she knows so intimately. This is Jay, who is a stranger.

Jay opens the window and starts pulling plants inside, crowding the top of the bookcase and windowsill. “It’s still too cold at night for them,” they explain. “But they like the sunlight during the day.”

“I’m impressed,” Nile says. She never had much luck keeping houseplants alive. Not that she’s had much of a chance to try.

The awkward silence falls again. She shuffles her feet. Jay runs a finger along a monstera leaf. Then they blurt, rather abruptly, “I just got a new dildo, you know.”

“Oh?” Nile says, taken off guard by the sudden directness.

“Haven’t had a chance to use it with anyone else yet,” Jay says, and finally looks up at her. “I thought maybe we could test it out. If you’re into that.”

Nile has a fairly new dildo, too, a vibrating one with rabbit ears that she’d bought in a fit of self pity after being woken up for the third night in a row by Joe and Nicky in a tiny safe house in Santiago. They were always polite and did their best to be unobtrusive about their relationship, more than they needed to be, especially after Booker; but neither of them were especially quiet in bed, and the walls were thin.

She’d paid extra for priority shipping and the next time she’d woken up at 2 am to Joe’s shout and Nicky’s groans she’d put in some headphones and gone to town.

She’d imagined someone else with her the whole time, and every time since.

Someone else who now stands in front of her, looking nervous and hopeful.

“Yes,” she says, a little breathless. “I’m into that.”

Jay grins, dazzling, and finally steps forward to kiss her.

It’s just as she remembers. Sweet and soft until Jay opens their mouth and it turns hungry. They taste the same as they used to. Their lips are still a little chapped, as they always were.

Nile has kissed five people since the last time she kissed Jay, and wished it was them every single time. She groans despite herself and sags into them, deepening the kiss as Jay wraps their arms around her.

They sway together for a long moment, kisses getting more desperate, panting into each others’ mouths, until Jay moves back, trips over a book on the floor, and sends them both sprawling on the bed. Nile laughs despite herself. Jay blushes. “Sorry,” they start, but Nile just shakes her head and catches their lips again, grinding down until they groan against her.

“Fuck me, Jay,” she breathes into their ear. “Fuck me, fuck me.”

Jay groans again, hands like vices around her waist. “Nile, you’re gonna kill me.”

“Not yet,” she says. “C’mon, Jay, _please_.”

Jay pulls away and huffs a laugh. “Well, if you insist.” They reach under the bed and pull out a plain box with lube, a strap-on, and...the exact same dildo Nile has.

She can’t suppress a laugh. Jay looks up at her sharply. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing! It’s just...I have the exact same dildo! I’ve been fucking myself with it and wishing I was with someone else.”

Jay raises an eyebrow. “Someone else?”

“Yeah.” She pitches her voice lower. “Someone who could give it to me good. Someone who could fuck me like they mean it.”

Jay’s eyes flash. “I’ll give it to you good,” they say, and roll off the bed, tugging off their clothes hurriedly. Nile is caught on their body, their golden skin and long limbs. She missed this. She missed them.

Jay leans over her and unbuttons her jeans, pulling them off slowly and dropping kisses down on her belly and hips. Then her shirt, and Jay latches their lips around a nipple and sucks, hands skating up and down her ribs until Nile’s moaning and writhing against them. They pull back with a wicked smile and tug off her underwear before standing back and sliding the strap-on up their legs. It’s a nice one, leather and well-fitted, accentuating the cut of their hips and their slim waist.

Jay crawls back over her and dips their head down again, mouthing at Nile’s neck, her breasts, her inner thighs. “So,” they ask. “You like this dick?”

“Yeah,” Nile pants. “It’s the perfect size. And...and the vibrations...I like to switch them, move through all the options until I come.”

“I bet you like the way it rubs against your clit, too, huh?”

“Yeah,” she gasps, tilting her head back. “Feels so good.” She’s not sure if she’s talking about the dildo or about Jay’s tongue, barely skimming over her clit. Both. 

“I bet it does,” Jay says again. “I bet it’ll rub just right on me, too. Especially if you’re fucking yourself on top of me, huh?”

Nile stops breathing, gasps at the thought. “Yes. _Yes_.”

Jay chuckles. “I remember,” they say. “You like to feel so full, don’t you Nile? And I can give that to you, I can fill you up like no one else can.”

“Yes,” she says again, mindless. She remembers Jay’s fingers, how good they were, how perfectly they moved them and how well they filled her up. One slips into her now and she barely feels an intrusion, she’s so turned on and wet. She groans and bucks her hips up.

“God, you’re so wet,” Jay says. “You can take as many of my fingers as I want to give you, can’t you?”

“Yes! Give me more, Jay!”

“Alright,” Jay says. “Okay.” They push in two more and Nile groans at the stretch, then gasps as Jay crooks their fingers just so. _God_ they’re good at this.

“Good?” Jay whispers, and she can’t summon anything but a whimper in response. She feels the curve of Jay’s smile against her cheek. 

She’s not sure how long Jay fingers her, it blurs together in a haze of pleasure, soft gasps and hungry kisses. Her eyes are closed when Jay slides into her, deep, clicking on the vibrations as they go, and Nile _shrieks,_ eyes flying open and fingers clutching at the sheets, at Jay’s bare back. She digs her fingers in and Jay hisses, but when she pulls back with an apology they shake their head. “It’s good,” they say. “God, Nile, it’s so good, you’re so beautiful.”

“I missed you,” she says mindlessly. “ _J_ _ay_.”

Jay groans in reply, ups the vibrations, and starts fucking Nile in earnest, hard enough that she’s jostled on the bed. She loops her arms around Jay’s neck and holds on, gathers herself and all the strength she’s managed to train into her body, and flips them over. It doesn’t quite work—they’re more on their sides, and the dildo slips out, leaving her wanting. Jay looks at her in surprise, pupils blown, and licks their lips, grinning.

“Damn Freeman, you’re strong now, huh?”

“I always was,” she says, repositioning herself over Jay. 

Jay snorts. “Bullshit, I always could lift you up like it was nothing. Is this another perk of the immortality? Hey, does this extend to endurance during sex?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Nile says, and sinks down. Jay groans as the vibrator presses against them and grinds into Nile deliciously. Nile lifts up a bit and drops down, lifts up, drops down; punching little noises out of Jay every time she does. She twines their fingers together, leans forward, and starts fucking herself on Jay in earnest. Jay’s fingers wrap around the base of the dildo, guiding it and switching up the vibration patterns every so often, driving Nile wild. It’s the unpredictability that gets her, the way she’ll be hovering on the edge of coming, grinding down hard, before the vibrations change and leave her shivering on the edge.

It feels so good, so _right_. Jay below her, around her, inside her. Their dark, lovely eyes, their pink, panting mouth. For the first time since her old life shattered to pieces, she feels fully at peace, fully at home. 

She leans down to catch Jay’s lips, desperate and biting. Jay’s fingers wind into her braids, holding her close, kissing back with the same desperation.

 _I love you,_ she mouths against Jay’s lips, a precious secret she’s too afraid to say out loud. She doesn’t know what will happen after this, she doesn’t know if she’ll get to keep this or not, she doesn’t know if she can stand to be in love, but she is. She has been for six years, and trying to leave it behind didn’t work so she might as well take this as the gift it is, cup it carefully between the palms of her hands, hold it close to her heart.

Jay changes the vibration again, and this is Nile’s favorite—short, fast, _strong_ pulses. She grinds down, crying out as Jay’s hips buck up to meet her. The rabbit ears hit her clit just right, and she feels like her entire body is shaking with the vibrations. Jay tilts their head to mouth at her neck, bites down right below her ear, and that’s all it takes to finally tip her over the edge.

She comes with a scream, so hard she thinks she passes out for a second. She hasn’t felt this good, this alive, this vulnerable, this _human_ since she died for the first time. Her arms give out and she crashes down, just managing to roll to the side to avoid crushing Jay. They’re panting too, flushed, eyes hazy with pleasure, but not quite there yet. They grind against the still-vibrating dildo and bite their lip.

“Pretty good endurance,” Nile manages when she gets her voice back, and Jay grins.

“This is nothing yet,” they pant, and groan when Nile reaches down to fist the dildo and push the vibrating rabbit ears into them.

“Does that feel good?” she whispers, and Jay closes their eyes, swallows, nods.

“Good,” Nile whispers. “‘Cause now it’s your turn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for following along and reading! Long live the femslash! 
> 
> I'm on [tumblr!](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


End file.
